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Monday, September 17, 2012

A Few of My Mother's Favorite Things

My mother had a sweet tooth. Or several.

Two weeks ago, my siblings and I all went to see her and to say our good-byes. Mom had not had an appetite for several months and had been eating very very little (but still managed to joke that she wasn't losing weight). While we were there, I made spaghetti alfredo, my sister made chocolate chip cookies, my brother made cookies and cream and pretzel bark. Mom ate it all, sometimes with especial pleasure. I can still see her on her bed, enjoying every bite of that cookies and cream and then asking for more. It was good to feel we could bring her some small pleasure through the foods we made--foods that she had taught us to make and made for us in our own times of celebration or heartache.

Below, you'll find four of Mom's favorites:

1. Cookies and Cream. This was a family recipe. We made it whenever we could find the elusive Nabisco Chocolate Wafers. I'm kind of glad they weren't easier to find. It kept it so that this treat was always a really special one.

2. Chocolate Chip Cookies (her favorite is my sister's recipe; it's close to this one and I'm still perfecting it, but I'll get it up here when I do). These were our go-to sweet growing up.

3. Cinnamon Rolls. Mom made these on special occasions, like Christmas. She also tended to make them when her grown children would come back home to visit.

4. Alfredo. This was something my mother absolutely loved, but often felt guilty eating because of its high fat content. I remember watching her eat it occasionally when we went out to eat (which was very occasionally when I was younger). It always seemed so fancy and indulgent when I was a kid. You'll notice, if you care to look at such things, that of the 12 things listed under the label 'pasta,' on this blog, four of them are spins on Alfredo recipes.